cognitive explanation

• false beliefs?

  suggests people with OCD misinterpret thoughts due to false beliefs learned earlier in life. As long as people interpret intrusive thoughts as catastrophic and continue to believe it holds truth they will continue to be distressed and practice ritual behaviours
• research ev for false beliefs?

  Salkovskis (1999), following beliefs may be important in development and maintenance of obsessions:

  • one is responsible for preventing misfortune or harm to others
  • certain thoughts are important and should be controlled
  • having an urge to do something increases chances it'll come true
  • tendency to overestimate likelihood of danger
  • belief that one should be perfect and mistakes are unacceptable
• memory problems?

  • Sher (1989), people with OCD have poor memories for their actions (have they turned the light off?)
  • Trivedi (1996), people suffering from OCD had low confidence in memory ability and non-verbal memory was impaired
  • Woods (2002), meta analysis where they found patients with OCD have slightly worse memories for recalling stimuli
• hypervigilance?

  have an attentional bias, overly sensitive to threat. seen with looking into rapid eye movements to scan environment so feel anxious based on threats perceived, which are basis of their obsessions.

  • Rachman (2004), case study, lady overestimated seriousness of contact with anyone due to probability of harm so would look for evidence like blood, cuts (contracting AIDS)
• Van Balkom (1996)?

  therapy in changing thoughts was successful, found it's as effective as drug treatment and if biological theory was pure focus of OCD then its treatment should work better
• weakness of cognitive explanation?

  • doesn't prove cause and effect link, faulty cognitions could just be a symptom.
  • reductionist, ignores role of biology or role of learning in environment.